THE HEADLESS PHOTO BLOG

RATHFARNHAM VILLAGE

As of 2018 there were approximately 1,100 An Post offices and over 100 postal agents across Ireland.The number has reduced since then.

An Post is the state-owned provider of postal services in Ireland. An Post provides a “universal postal service” to all parts of the country as a member of the Universal Postal Union. Services provided include letter post, parcel service, deposit accounts, Express Post (an all-Ireland next-day delivery service), and EMS (international express-mail service).

Rathfarnham’s Protestant parish church, on the Main Street, was built in 1795 to replace the church in the old graveyard. Beside the church is the old schoolhouse that dates from early in the nineteenth century. Immediately adjoining is Church Lane at the corner of which is a bank built on the site of a Royal Irish Constabulary barracks that was burned down by Anti-Treaty IRA forces in September 1922 during the Irish Civil War. In the lane is an old blocked-up doorway of an early eighteenth-century type. Church Lane leads to Woodview cottages, which are built partly on the site of an old paper mill. The mill race previously mentioned passed under Butterfield Lane to the paper mill and continued on below Ashfield to turn the wheel of the Ely Cloth Factory. It was later turned into the Owen Doher River at Woodview Cottages. Until recently, when the new road was made to Templeogue, the old mill race could still be traced through the grounds of Ashfield where its dry bed was still spanned by several stone bridges.

The paper mill, of which some old walls and brick arches still survive, has been described as the oldest in Ireland but there does not appear to be any evidence to support this. The earliest reference to a paper mill here is 1719 when William Lake of Rathfarnham presented a petition for financial aid but we hear of one at Milltown as far back as 1694. In 1751 William and Thomas Slater whose works were destroyed by fire in 1775 made paper here. Archer’s survey of 1801 mentions two paper mills here, Freemans and Teelings, and both Dalton in 1836 and Lewis in 1837 state that one paper mill was still working and from 1836 to 1839 the name Henry Hayes, Rathfarnham Mill appears in the directories. If this can be identified with the mill at Woodview cottages it must have become idle soon afterwards as it is designated “Old Mill” on the 1843 edition of the O.S. map. In 1854 when this mill had neither a water wheel nor machinery, an attempt was made to re-open it for the manufacture of paper but it came to nothing. The mill race has now been completely removed to make way for a housing development.

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THE REPAIRED AND RESTORED SHAKEY BRIDGE ACROSS THE RIVER LEE

In some of the photographs in this series you will see a small teddy bear. A charity and a man whose son died by suicide have teamed up to place teddy bears with messages of hope on every major bridge in Cork city. The project aims to raise awareness of help that is available.

Volunteers from Cork Penny Dinners placed the bears, solar lights and messages of hope on 30 bridges spanning the north and south channels of the River Lee and on trees along the Marina, downstream of the city. Caitriona Twomey of Cork Penny Dinners explained that the initiative was the brainchild of Pieta House volunteer Mick Ryan, from Bunclody in Co Wexford, who lost his son Sean Paul (22) to suicide.

“Basically it involved putting up a teddy bear on each of the bridges, together with a solar light that shines in the darkness and a message, ‘Your family and friends love you’ along with a helpline number from the HSE and another from Pieta House that people can text,” she said.

Even though my A7RIV camera was delivered at the end of 2019 I had little opportunity to use until late in 2020. This camera has been replaced by the A7RV which is a lot more expensive and it is supposed to be much better but I decided that I will not get one as I am more than happy with my current camera.

The repaired and restored Daly’s Bridge in Cork, known locally as the shakey bridge, reopened in December 2020 its shake intact. However, I did not get to photograph it until August 2021.

Experts who oversaw the work on the last remaining suspension pedestrian bridge of its age and type in Ireland were very pleased to announce that they had been able to retain the heritage structure’s famous shake.

They used accelerometers to measure the frequency of the shake before work on the structure started in late 2019 and measured the shake of the restored bridge, which includes new cables made in Italy, to ensure it vibrates at exactly the same rate.

The refurbishment and conservation works, which cost over €1.7m, were deemed necessary to address serious corrosion and extensive damage to the 1927 suspension pedestrian bridge which links the Mardyke to Sunday’s Well and Shanakiel in Cork City.

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